Rumble's 4E Framework, Version 5 - Discussion

[Guy Dude]

Gotcha. I still prefer how equipment works in this over Slim, especially the equipment library - it'd just be nice to see it extended to cover armor, shields, and items in addition to the weapons and implements. The Slim power library would also be helpful for quickly adding item powers.

I was curious, would it pretty much take a complete rewrite to replace the macro-heavy tokens with a macro panel frame? http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16304 (Was this the eventual idea behind the Slim character sheet?)

[Rumble]

It would take a major rewrite to do that, yes. However, note that the reason wolph4w invented was to account for a problem in MapTool's internal workings that I remedied through my performance-improvement updates to MapTool's code in the b76 release.

As for the character sheet, a lot of that is DeviantNull's influence, plus the idea that if I was going to bother creating a quick reference sheet to show to players, why not make it "live" so they can use that if they wish. The capability exists in the macro language, why not take advantage of it?

[Guy Dude]

Yea, I really like the new character sheet and the Equipment Library. It'd be cool if it only took the DM a few clicks to setup item trades

[Alhazred]

One issue I've noted is with initiative management, at least in 5.0.2 framework, haven't tried 5.0.3 yet. The 'end turn' token macro on players doesn't see NPCs and sort of skips over them, placing the reticle on the next token visible to the the PCs, which confuses the end turn processing to no end. Another issue with this is (probably not really fixable) that end turn processing can take a while, which tends to result in the player clicking 'end turn' and then the DM clicking 'next turn' in the campaign macros, which really messes things up!

I'd basically suggest ditching the 'end turn' macro on tokens. From a usability standpoint it is nice, but it basically seems to result in no end of fouled up initiative/turn processing. I just deleted it from everyone's tokens to avoid hassles even though it means I have to ask if the player is done and advance things from my (DM) end.

The reticle seems a bit buggy as well just in general. Now and then it gets applied to the next token but not deleted from the previous one. This is a really minor thing but just thought I'd mention it too.

Nice framework overall. I agree that equipment handling is still a bit rough. It would be nice if powers and equipment could be easily copied from token to token too, that could save a good bit of time setting things up.

Oh, one other thing. When you import monster stat blocks their skills don't come out right. Ones that are trained come out fine, but the ones that are just picked from the ability score modifier seem to be off by quite a bit. Looks like maybe level modifier isn't being added in?

[Guy Dude]

I'd basically suggest ditching the 'end turn' macro on tokens. From a usability standpoint it is nice, but it basically seems to result in no end of fouled up initiative/turn processing. I just deleted it from everyone's tokens to avoid hassles even though it means I have to ask if the player is done and advance things from my (DM) end.

Agreed, I think thats how we fixed the initiative problems too

[Rumble]

I'd basically suggest ditching the 'end turn' macro on tokens. From a usability standpoint it is nice, but it basically seems to result in no end of fouled up initiative/turn processing. I just deleted it from everyone's tokens to avoid hassles even though it means I have to ask if the player is done and advance things from my (DM) end.

Agreed, I think thats how we fixed the initiative problems too

Last time I did that, there were many complaints. However, I always advance turns myself as DM, rather than have the players do it - it's really the best way to do it.

[jfrazierjr]

I'd basically suggest ditching the 'end turn' macro on tokens. From a usability standpoint it is nice, but it basically seems to result in no end of fouled up initiative/turn processing. I just deleted it from everyone's tokens to avoid hassles even though it means I have to ask if the player is done and advance things from my (DM) end.

Agreed, I think thats how we fixed the initiative problems too

Last time I did that, there were many complaints. However, I always advance turns myself as DM, rather than have the players do it - it's really the best way to do it.

I am not 100% sure I understand this problem, but it seems that owner permissions would fix the problem. I wonder how much it would fix the issue once I move to initiative events....just thinking out loud...

[Rumble]

I am not 100% sure I understand this problem, but it seems that owner permissions would fix the problem. I wonder how much it would fix the issue once I move to initiative events....just thinking out loud...

The problem was just that if one player hits advance turn, and then the GM hits it because they didn't realize the player had already done so, it jumps 2 steps or otherwise screws up. In response, I tried a couple things (one was a turn lockout, which was an abysmal failure); one was just not giving "end turn" buttons to players (which people didn't like, though the protest was not as vocal as that against the turn lockout idea, which was a pretty bad idea*).

I would love to create a series of initiative and other event callbacks. I realize that's in the plan for 1.4, and not in the plan for 1.3 (and in fact, I support leaving it out of 1.3 if it means we can have Maptool 1.3 released, ever ), and also that it's somewhat clumsy compared to "real" events. But I've already played around with onGainInitiative and onLoseInitiative macros in my spare time, and they were cool, and I was just thinking that I'd love to have an onGainState and onLoseState pairing.

However, in the hopes of a final 1.3, I'd rather branch it off as a 'custom' build.





* Also note that "vocal outcry" means 3-5 users said it didn't work and broke their game.

[jfrazierjr]

[
I would love to create a series of initiative and other event callbacks. I realize that's in the plan for 1.4, and not in the plan for 1.3 (and in fact, I support leaving it out of 1.3 if it means we can have Maptool 1.3 released, ever ), and also that it's somewhat clumsy compared to "real" events. But I've already played around with onGainInitiative and onLoseInitiative macros in my spare time, and they were cool, and I was just thinking that I'd love to have an onGainState and onLoseState pairing.

However, in the hopes of a final 1.3, I'd rather branch it off as a 'custom' build.

Well.. Once i finish FOW, I will be doing this as it's really easy to do and will submit. It's up to Azhrei if he wants to merge it. But since we are still waiting for a few other 1.3 things, I don't see a problem with it getting put in. But, if nothing else, I will try to make use of it in my own games (have to hack your's or one of the other frameworks to implement it though..ugh..)

[meshon]

This new version is amazing. The old one was too!

I apologize if this has been covered before. I read over a bunch of the beta thread but didn't find an answer.

I want to have Healing Word apply some defense bonuses to the target but I can't figure out how to do that. I'm trying to replicate the feats Defensive Word and Shielding Word which each apply a different type of bonus to all defenses for a different duration.

I was just wondering if anyone had any way to do that automatically. Also these are stacking bonuses and I'm not quite sure how to sort that out either.

Thanks for making this amazing tool!

cheers,
Meshon

[Rumble]

First, thanks!

Second...you may have to create Healing Word as a regular power, rather than a leader power - it was a bit shortsighted of me, but leader powers don't have an option to add conditions. I haven't opened up the framework in a while, so I can post more tonight about how you'd go about doing that.

I suppose it might be useful to be able to apply conditions with leader powers, huh?

[Guy Dude]

Yea, I was a little confused when I opened up "leader powers" and it turned out that it really only meant the main heal they get instead of support powers in general.

[meshon]

Hey, thanks for the quick reply!

I haven't gone too far into it yet but it seems that I can't have two different bonuses to the same property. Continuing my example, one feat adds a +2 untyped bonus to all defenses and the other adds a power bonus to all defenses (equal to Cha). Is that right? I should probably combine those two into one condition and edit it when the first expires.

Just the fact that I can actually edit that way is fantastic. There have been a number of times when I've thought, "Okay, how will I do that?" and then quickly discover that you've made it easy.

thanks again
Meshon

[Rumble]

Yea, I was a little confused when I opened up "leader powers" and it turned out that it really only meant the main heal they get instead of support powers in general.

That's the legacy of the older version of this framework. Really, they shouldn't be in there at all, and it should all just be done via the main power interface. I just didn't want to take on that headache, so I took on a different headache that makes the first headache worse.

Exception-based design: apply directly to the forehead.

[Guy Dude]

Blegh, at this point I wonder if it would be easier for you to just port features over to the Slim framework and make that your new base